My House of Horrors

In the end, Chen Ge discovered Lee Jiu and Yellow Wolf in Li Wan Private Hospital’s morgue. When he arrived, the two were already unconscious, but thankfully, their vital signs were still stable, and they did not need immediate medical attention. The child’s handprint behind Yellow Wolf’s neck had already disappeared. Tong Tong was the one behind it—he had been influencing the phone call between them.

“Go and get me the trolley from the underground morgue.” Chen Ge dragged the hammer and turned to order the patient who guarded beside Lee Jiu. “Don’t worry, I am not going to blame you. Feel free to scare such visitors who insist on using their phones inside the Haunted House even after multiple warnings. Furthermore, I believe that they are here to create problems, so if anything, you have done a very good job.

“We are staffed with the best doctors, and I plan to invest in a whole set of modern medical equipment when there’s enough money so that the visitors can really enjoy themselves without any worry when they are at the Haunted House.”

Seeing how open-minded Chen Ge was, the patient who shifted his weight nervously quickly nodded and prepared to leave.

“Wait a minute.” Chen Ge turned back to look. “Why are you leaving in such a hurry? Was it you alone who scared these two until they fainted?”

The patient glanced at the autopsy tables that were covered with white cloth, and after some hesitation, he nodded.

“Li Wan Private Hospital needs a leader, and you’re not bad. I will focus on cultivating you in the future.” Chen Ge was not just joking—he never joked with his words. “It will be a harsh journey to evolve into a Red Specter, but becoming a Half Red Specter is still easy enough.”

The patient was dumbfounded. He was honestly enjoying himself when he scared the visitors earlier. The group of ghosts had chased the two for almost ten minutes. It was not until the two men fainted that they realized that perhaps they had crossed the line…

The image of that scary man flashed through their minds, and many patients dispersed in a hurry. Only this most honest man had stayed behind. Actually, he felt rather guilty about the whole thing. He had tried his best to satisfy the visitor’s request, but in the end, he had realized that he was being toyed with. That had caused the ghosts of the entire hospital to go on a rampage. Now that the visitors had fainted, he felt like he was the main culprit, so he had stayed behind to accept the punishment.

He was ready to be punished, but to his surprise, Chen Ge not only did not blame him, he even promised to help him evolve into a Half Red Specter. This kind of change in emotion aroused a strange and indescribable feeling in his heart that was consumed by resentment.

“Alright, stop standing there dumbly. Please go and get the trolley from the underground morgue and transfer them out of the scenario.”

The patient drifted away in a haze of joy. Meanwhile, Chen Ge squatted down next to Lee Jiu and Yellow Wolf and started his inspection. “Lee Jiu has make-up on his face. Why would a visitor like him come to my Haunted House and pretend to be a ghost? Is he trying to scare my workers?

“Yellow Wolf came to my Haunted House and started a livestream. He planned to expose the design of my Haunted House before tens of thousands of people. Lee Jiu came to my Haunted House to masquerade himself as an employee to wreak havoc. These two have a clear separation of responsibility—this was definitely planned.” Chen Ge found a small make-up bag in Lee Jiu’s pocket, and inside it was an access card for the futuristic theme park. Currently, futuristic theme park was still not open to the public, and the internal attractions were kept under wraps. To gain access, one needed an access card.

“As I suspected, they are related to the futuristic theme park.” Chen Ge replaced everything that he had found. He did not confiscate anything. “The futuristic theme park is opening soon, so there is no more time to waste. I need to release the four-star mission to the public before they open for business!”

Standing up, Chen Ge dragged the hammer and left Li Wan Private Hospital.

…

At the second-floor basement of Li Wan Residence, Shinozaki and his female assistant were focused on undoing the tape in the room. This was the mission given to them by Wei Jinyuan. However, to their consternation, several minutes ago, Wei Jinyuan’s bone-chilling yell for mercy had come from a deeper part of the building.

Neither of them had been that courageous to begin with, and Wei Jinyuan’s scream only caused their already unsteady hearts to race even faster.

“Do you think we should go downstairs to take a look?” Xiao Xia asked out of politeness even though her desire not to do so was plainly written on her face.

“Let him be, we should leave this to the professional. After all, Wei Jinyuan did say that he works at a Haunted House, so I believe that he has the capability to handle everything on his own.” Shinozaki coughed awkwardly. When he saw the handprints on the back of Wei Jinyuan’s neck earlier, he had known that something like this was bound to happen.

“Then, what should we do now?” Xiao Xia asked a very key question. Even though Wei Jinyuan did not appear like he had a fully functioning brain, at least they had felt a sense of security when they were with him. Now that Wei Jinyuan had been ‘attacked’, the two were left to deal with the monsters and ghosts on their own.

“We can’t panic.” Shinozaki thought about it and came up with a good idea. “We should wait here. Wei Jinyuan has a partner inside the adjacent building. He will come over here after hearing the man’s scream. We will just follow him.”

“Okay.” Xiao Xia glanced at the door that was left ajar. Beyond that was the darkened corridor. “Should I go close the door?”

“Hmm. We will pretend like there is no one in this room, and we’ll observe the situation outside through the peephole.

“But we have already taken down the tape on the door, haven’t we?”

“Now is not the time to mind such details.”

The two closed the door, stayed guard beside it. Shinozaki leaned against the door and looked out through the peephole. All he saw was darkness—there was nothing that he could glean. Xia Xiao leaned against the wall. Cold sweat kept flowing down her face. For some reason, she was feeling incredibly panicky like there was a third individual in the room with them.

“Sir, why do you think all the furniture was covered with tape?”

“I have no clue,” Shinozaki answered absent-mindedly. He adjusted his posture, trying to figure out the best position to get the best view through the peephole.

“Is the tape to prevent the objects from cracking open? Is it possible that the furniture knew how to move on its own? All the gaps were taped shut. Do you think it’s because the drawers can suddenly open on their own? The house owner taped up all the gaps to prevent that from happening?” Xiao Xia still had not realized how scary the situation that she was describing was.

“Open on their own? Why would the drawers open on their own?” Shinozaki turned around to look at Xiao Xia.

“Perhaps there were things hidden inside the furniture, or maybe there are entities that human can’t see that will go through the furniture.”

“Entities that are invisible?” Shinozaki’s face paled slightly, but he tried his best to maintain his calmness. “In any case, that is a wonderful idea to put in my comic. Not bad, we’ve been here for only several minutes, but we have come across two wonderful ideas already.”

“Sir, I think we should leave. This place gives me the creeps.” Xiao Xia looked around nervously, and she realized that the DVD player in the living room, which had previously been off, had been switched on.

“Isn’t that a good thing? The creepier, the better! I want those people who say I only know how to draw one kind of comic to see that a real artist is able to master any genre!” Shinozaki had a bad temper, and there was some truth behind that criticism because he only had those few comics in the same genre to show. The more that he thought about it, the more angered he became.

“When we entered this place, was the DVD player on?” Xiao Xia did not pay attention to what Shinozaki said. She studied the player curiously, and while she was watching the machine, the signal light of the television in the living room came on as well.

“Quick, look!” Xiao Xia gasped in shock. “Sir! We seem to have triggered something!”

“Don’t panic.” Shinozaki signaled for Xiao Xia to calm down. The two of them walked slowly to the television.

“Someone was probably remote-controlling it. I encountered this at a Japanese Haunted House. This is not good. That scary Haunted House boss is coming to get us soon!” Shinozaki inspected the television. Perhaps he had touched some button because the television screen suddenly lit up.

The cold light fell on the two’s faces, and they turned to the television screen in unison. The video quality of the old television was not that good, but the two managed to immediately identify that the video on the television was showing the living room that they were in.

Everything was the same; it felt like someone had placed a camera on top of the television to record everything that happened in the living room.

“A surveillance video? But why would someone install a video inside their own home?” Shinozaki and Xiao Xia stared at the screen, too afraid to even move a muscle. Ten seconds had passed, and the two realized that the television screen was still showing the same image. The video appeared still because nothing had changed.

“Since the surveillance is taken of their own home, it seems that something strange must have happened here, and the homeowner wanted to find out the truth.” Shinozaki pulled open the drawer at the bottom of the television cabinet. There was a collection of discs without labels inside. They seemed to have been recorded by the home owner himself. “The clue to escape might be hidden among these discs.”

Shinozaki focused on searching for clues inside the drawer while Xiao Xia kept her eyes on the television screen. She had this feeling that something was moving in the supposedly still image.

“Is that a bug?” Xiao Xia walked a few steps forward and leaned her face as close to the screen as possible. She studied the door of the bathroom in the video. The door had been left half open, and right next to the doorframe, a few strands of black hair could be seen.

“That looks like hair.” When the television was first switched on, there had been nothing near the bathroom, so the few strands of hair were a new addition. Xiao Xia’s mind was filled with confusion. She was about to get Shinozaki to take a look when the strands of hair in the video started to wiggle on their own.

“The hairs are moving?” The quality of the video was so bad that she had to lean close to take an affirmative look. However, just as she leaned toward the screen, a woman’s face poked out from inside the bathroom!

“Ah!” Xiao Xia screamed, and she was scared until she bounced back and collapsed on the sofa. “Ghost! Sir! In the television! She’s inside the television!”

The room was not that big, and it was so quiet. Once Xiao Xia’s scream shattered the quietness, even Shinozaki was given quite a scare. He put the discs that he was holding down and lifted his head to look at the screen. Inside the television, a woman’s face could be seen reaching out from inside the bathroom.

It was quite a pretty face, and the thing that caused Shinozaki fear was that no matter how far he had moved away from the screen, it felt like the face was still staring right at him!

“It’s fine, don’t be so easily scared. This is merely a common trick in Haunted Houses.” However, Shinozaki’s rambling belied the fear he was feeling. He wanted to switch the television off, but he failed to find the power button.

“Sir, I think we should go now, and we will return once we have more people with us.” Xiao Xia’s face was pale from the scare. Just that once, and it was enough to take the fight out of her. She felt like the energy had left her body, and she could barely get her legs to move. “This is too scary. Sir, you can stay to finish the tour on your own if you prefer, but I will surrender now.”

As she tried to stand up, Xiao Xia held the armrest for support, but as she turned around, she saw it. Just about three meters away from her, a woman’s face was reaching out from inside the bathroom, a perfect replica of the image that she had seen in the video!

“I think I’m suffering from hallucinations from all these scares.” Xiao Xia turned to look at the television. The video was still frozen at the image where the female human was poking out from the toilet. “Yes, this is what it showed on the television.”

She turned her head around, and a woman materialized before her. She had a pretty face and a body that was covered in cuts. A copious amount of blood bled from the open wounds.

Her face was contorted in fear. As Xiao Xia lost her consciousness and tipped backward, she used her last vestige of strength to scream, “Ghost! There’s a ghost!’

Shinozaki was still researching why the woman’s eyes in the videos were able to follow his every movement. He believed that the boss had replicated the technique used by Da Vinci when he painted Mona Lisa. But before he settled on a reason, he heard the scream from Xiao Xia. When he turned around, he was also petrified by fear.

They had checked the room several times already—it was definitely empty. However, now, a woman covered with blood and open wounds had appeared before them!

This was not a mere scare but a direct shock to the heart!

The warning from Xiao Xia meant that Shinozaki was somewhat prepared. Even though he was shaking like a leaf, he did not lose control over his body just yet. The woman blocked the door out of the living room, and Shinozaki grabbed Xiao Xia and raced into the bedroom.

BANG!

The door slammed shut. Shinozaki’s heart was racing madly, and he started to consider the possibility of calling the police.

“What do I do? What do I do now‽” Shinozaki was so scared that he had forgotten that he was inside a Haunted House. Thankfully, the realization came to him moments later. “Right, I am inside a Haunted House!”

He leaned against the door and started to yell out the door loudly. “We surrender! We don’t want to continue this tour anymore! Please leave! Please go and leave us alone!”

There was no response from outside the door; there was no sound of footsteps either. Shinozaki supported Xiao Xia, and neither one of them dared to open the door.

“How about… we just stay in here until the boss comes to get us?”

After experiencing that, Shinozaki was not going to put up a front anymore. This Haunted House had a comprehensive understanding of the human psyche. Other Haunted Houses would relax their visitors first and arrange the scares at places where the visitors least expected it. But this Haunted House was different. They would scare the visitors head-on until their souls left their bodies. After their guard was completely destroyed, the next scare would come at them from a different angle, continuously scaring them with endless horror.

“In the future, I will definitely invite those other comic artists who look down on me to come here.” There was no noise coming from outside the door, and Shinozaki did not know what to do next. “The woman has blocked the door to prevent us from leaving. There has to be a reason it is designed like this. Could it be that there is a clue to leave this place hidden inside this bedroom?”

Leaving the guard post at the door to Xiao Xia, Shinozaki started to explore the room. He noticed something strange immediately. The table inside the bedroom had a few unique pens placed on it.

“Graphite pen, ballpoint pen, and marker pen?” Shinozaki recognized them easily. “The graphite pen is used for the outline of a character, the ballpoint pen is for the details like patterns on the shirt and eyelashes, while the marker pen is for the bigger shading. These are all necessary pens for drawing comics! Could it be that the owner of this house is a comic artist?”

A visit at the Haunted House might have led him to get to know a new colleague, that was something that Shinozaki did not expect. He walked to the table and flipped through the manuscript on the table.

Initially, he was just flipping through it out of curiosity, but he was soon drawn into it.

“I’ve never seen this kind of art style before. One glance at it, and it’ll send chill down your spine. It has to be a genius who drew this comic! Is he going to spearhead a new movement in the comic industry‽”